Fishing lures of the type used for trolling for large gamefish may comprise a body with a longitudinal bore. The body is typically made of a solid or hollow plastic material. The lure may have a skirt made of a pliable material with strands extending rearwardly. The skirt may be attached to the rearward end of the body or may encase the body entirely. A leader, which may be made of wire cable or heavy nylon to protect against severance by sharp fish teeth, extends through the bore and is attached to a hook rearward of the body. To attach the hook to the leader, the leader may be threaded through the end of the hook and tied or crimped with a sleeve to form an eye.
When the lure is pulled through the water, the body tends to roll to and thereafter remain in a particular angular orientation. Typically, features on the body, such as a beveled surface, produce hydrodynamic effects that stabilize the body in this angular orientation, referred to herein as the "natural" orientation. In other lures, the longitudinal bore may be angled or offset from the central axis of the body to produce a similar stabilizing effect. In still other lures, weights may be distributed within the lure body in a manner that produces a similar effect.
When a hook is pulled through the water, it produces hydrodynamic effects that tend to stabilize it in an angular orientation in which the shank is parallel to the leader and the pointed end curves upwardly toward the forwardly facing point. Coincidentally, this orientation, referred to herein as the "natural" orientation, also maximizes the likelihood of a striking fish becoming hooked, due to the direction from which a fish typically strikes a trolled lure. Nevertheless, the hook may not assume its natural orientation as the lure is trolled. Although the lure body and the hook are mechanically arranged to rotate freely with respect to one another, water resistance may cause them to bind when the lure is trolled. If the lure is trolled with the hook in a random orientation with respect to the body, the hydrodynamic effects of the body typically overpower those of the hook, causing the hook to assume a random orientation. Even if the lure is initially placed in the water with the body in its natural orientation and the hook in its natural orientation, the hook may not resume its natural orientation if displaced. A strike that does not result in a "hook-up" can easily displace the hook. If the hook does not return to the natural orientation (or does not return quickly enough before the fish strikes again), the likelihood of a subsequent hook-up is reduced. Not only frictional binding between the hook and body, but entanglement of the hook in the skirt may also prevent the hook from resuming its natural orientation.
Anglers have attempted to overcome the hook orientation problem by minimizing the relative angular rotation between the hook and the body. Because, as described above, the lure body remains in a relatively stable orientation, a hook mounted in a fixed orientation with respect to the body remains in a relatively stable orientation. Permanently mounting the hook to an eye or similar fitting on the body, however, is not a satisfactory solution. It is often necessary for an angler to cut the line to release a fish from which he cannot extract the hook. Although cutting the line results in loss of the hook, the fish can be released relatively unharmed. If the hook were permanently mounted on the body of the lure, cutting the line would result in loss of the entire lure. Furthermore, an angler could not quickly and easily replace one lure with another without changing the hook and vice versa.
Anglers have wedged various objects, such as toothpicks and pieces of tape, into the longitudinal bore in the lure body to secure the leader in a fixed angular orientation with respect to the body. The hook tends to remain in a fixed angular orientation with respect to the body because the hook is relatively rigidly attached to the leader by a knot or crimp connector.
A lure manufactured by Sadu Lures of Jupiter, Fla. under the brand name SADU attempts to solve the problem. The lure has a body made of a hard plastic with a longitudinal bore. A cylindrical plug made of an elastomeric material may be removably mounted in the rearward end of the bore. The plug is thus frictionally gripped in the body bore. The plug also has a bore with a diameter smaller than the diameter of the leader. The plug thus frictionally grips a leader that is threaded through the bore. When the plug is disposed in the body bore and the leader is threaded through the plug bore, relative rotation between the lure and the leader is inhibited. Although the SADU lure addresses the problem, the system cannot be retrofitted to an existing lure body because the SADU body bore must have a diameter larger than that of a conventional lure in order to receive the plug.
It would be desirable to provide a device and method for selectably orienting a hook relative to the body of a lure that can be used with existing lures. These problems and deficiencies are clearly felt in the art and are solved by the present invention in the manner described below.